On Mar 31, 2009, at 10:54 AM, Nancy Broden wrote:
I think the rise in interest in people with broad skills has a lot
to do with the economy. Every time it goes down the toilet,
employers want people who can fill more than one role. When the
economy improves and more bodies are needed, that pressure is
alleviated and employers become less picky and demanding. It
happened in 2001 and again in 2008.
Hi Nancy,
We've researched this quite a bit. You're correct that it has to do
with economic factors, but it's not related to the global or national
economies. Instead it's related to the organization's internal economy.
It has to do with internal demand for the skill sets. If there's
enough work to justify someone who is specialized in an area (such as
IA), then the organization will seek to hire a person like that.
But for most organizations, it's rare they can keep someone
specialized busy full time. In those cases, they seek more
generalists. (Sometimes their postings are poorly written and they say
they are hiring someone with a specialty, but then, in the job
description and requirements, they list more generalized skills and
experience. This is fairly common.)
Also, keep in mind that among the UX disciplines, real specialists are
actually rare. A specialist is someone who has significant general
training, but in-depth knowledge in one or more specialties.
For example, in medicine, doctors train in general medicine first for
many years, then they pick their specialty. As residents, they rotate
through specialties, gaining knowledge and skills for each one, before
they pick the one they'll focus their career on. That way, an
orthopedic surgeon is trained to deliver babies, though after a few
years, they are probably not as up-to-date on the latest advancements
as a practicing obstetrician.
In design, it's rare that someone who has chosen IA as a career path
is skilled in visual design, user research techniques, and
copywriting. In our training institutions, we don't have an equivalent
notion to resident rotation, where those new to the field get to
experience the entire thing, then choose their specialty. So, there
are few specialists.
Instead, there are what we at UIE call compartmentalists: people who
have trained completely in a single area with little-to-no applicable
skills in other areas. (They could be excellent IAs, but have no
better skills at visual design than a layman.) These people will be
less valuable to organizations that don't have economies to keep that
person busy every working hour.
If you're interested, I've written more about our research here:
http://www.uie.com/articles/ideal_UX_team/
I think what you see in the ebbs and flows of the global economy (2001
& 2008) is that companies are paying more attention to what they can
and can't afford. They are realizing they were wasting resources on
individuals who didn't have the skills necessary to do the entire job,
therefore they are more careful in their hiring practices (and a
little more ruthless when it comes to restructuring).
Jared
Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: [email protected] p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: jmspool
UIE Web App Summit, 4/19-4/22: http://webappsummit.com
Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: [email protected] p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: jmspool
UIE Web App Summit, 4/19-4/22: http://webappsummit.com
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... [email protected]
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
